


Any Port in a Storm

by ZaliaChimera



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Affection, Aftercare, Angst, BDSM, Bondage, Friendship, Gen, Introspection, Non-Sexual Bondage, Non-Sexual Kink, Platonic BDSM, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rope Bondage, Safewords, Soldiers, bondage as therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 06:08:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4949596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/pseuds/ZaliaChimera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Wash is hard on the people under his command, then he is brutal on himself. He will not rest until he has halved their time on every exercise, then halved it again. And it still isn't enough. Eventually it will get him killed.</p><p>Unless someone steps in to give him what he needs and help to regain his hard won control.</p><p>Set between S12 and S13.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Any Port in a Storm

It’s Tucker who hands Wash the bottle of water when he finally settles, panting and sweaty, on the bottom bunk. Wash undoes the catches of his helmet and pulls it off, shaking his head to dislodge the damp hair from his eyes. He guzzles the water until he starts to feel sick, and then slows to brief sips until the bottle is empty. 

“Man, didn’t you get enough in training?” Tucker asks. He’s out of his armour, in the plain fatigues that they’ve been issued from the dwindling stocks that the Chorus forces have access to. Wash doesn’t take his armour off except to sleep, and even then it’s right next to him, ready to be pulled on at the slightest hint of an attack.

“Just doing the basics isn’t good enough,” Wash says. He squeezes the empty bottle and it crumples beneath the fingers of his gauntlets. “Why does this not get through to you?”

Tucker shrugs and jerks his head back towards the the door. The sounds of the mess can be heard through it, laughter and arguing, even singing. Everyone is in high spirits. It makes Wash itch thinking about it, a slow burn of anger. They should be preparing, not laughing. Don’t they know that this could all be pulled down around them in a second? He’s seen it happen before. He’s lived it. “I dunno. We seem to be doing pretty well with how we’ve been working so far.”

It’s said with all of Tucker’s trademark cockiness, lazy arrogance born of luck and naivety that sours Wash’s mood further. Is his memory really that short? A few weeks ago he was bleeding out on the floor of a Pelican after Felix had stabbed him. “You can’t rely on the same things always working, Tucker. All it takes is one slip up and we’re going to be wiped out.”

Tucker rolls his eyes. Wash swears that he is surrounded by pre-schoolers, the ones who are just at the age to have discovered sarcasm without having also discovered subtlety. “Lighten up. We’re doing fine. We already captured a bunch of stuff.”

 _It’s your **fault**_ , Wash wants to snarl. He wants to twist his fingers into Tucker’s collar and shake him until he understands, make an example of him so that they all understand. _It’s your fault I’m playing catch up, that I’m having to work so hard. You made me lazy, made me weak and it has to be your fault because otherwise I let myself get this way._

Instead, he scoops up his helmet and pushes himself to his feet. “I’m going out to the observation point.”

“What? You only just got back! It’s like three miles away!”

“Exactly,” Wash says, and slides his helmet on, feeling the seals shut. “With any luck I won’t be able to hear your whining out there.”

“Asshole!”

“Bitch!” Wash calls back as he heads out.

For all Tucker’s horror at the idea, the observation point is not that much of a trek. It’s easy terrain, and the exercise should help to clear his head. He’d thought the same thing about his earlier, longer run, and the one that morning before everyone else was awake. Hadn’t worked then either.

A few of the Chorus soldiers stare as he passes, cheer like he’s some kind of super man, even though he swears he can feel the lag in every movement, the atrophy in every muscle. It’s the damn leaderboard all over again, except this time it’s himself at the top and he’s never good enough to beat his own mind.

He’s at the outskirts of the camp when his HUD flashes a warning. There’s a flash of aqua armour in the corner of his vision. He slows to a jog, then stops when Carolina steps into his path. Her helmet is off, red hair vivid against the darkening blue night. Epsilon hovers at her shoulder.

“Is it helping?” she asks.

Wash is glad for the helmet that covers his expression, the wince of guilt and shame. It shows in his posture, and she knows him too well not to miss that, but it makes him feel better. “Is what helping what?”

There’s no eye rolling from her, just an arched eyebrow that says she can see right through him. “Did you think that I wouldn’t notice?”

“I don’t know what you were expecting to notice,” he replies and sets off again, not quite a jog but faster than a walk. Dumb ignorance is easier to play off after months with the Blues. Who knows? Maybe it’ll frustrate her enough to make her back off.

Nah. When is his luck ever that good?

She grabs his shoulder, has him spun ‘round before he can do anything about it, and it’s another sharp reminder why she’d been number one while he’d been scraping the bottom of the board. That fucking leaderboard. It all comes back to that doesn’t it? 

“All the extra training. The early morning runs, the late night runs. Every assault course you won’t leave until you’ve halved the time it takes anyone else to do, and then halved it again.”

Shit. He goes still. He’d figured she’d notice but hadn’t guessed that she’d notice in such detail. Stupid of him. “What about it?”

“You’re going overboard Wash.”

He pulls free of her grip. She lets him go. It wouldn’t be that easy if she didn’t want to let him. “Right, and you’d know all about that wouldn’t you?”

Epsilon flickers, facepalms, signalling that he thinks Wash is a complete moron with no sense of self-preservation. It’s impressive that the AI can get it across so eloquently in a single gesture.

Wash sees the clench of Carolina’s fist and shifts his stance, braces for it. Maybe this is it, what he’s been waiting for. Come out bruised and bloody and sore, but at least he’ll have earnt every second of that pain. He slides forward onto the tips of his toes, not bouncing but close. Anticipatory.

Carolina sighs, steps back and away from him, away from combat, her fingers spreading at her side then relaxing.

“I’m not going to fight you, Wash.” There’s something in her voice, not _gentle_ , but _something_. Something that grates against Wash’s nerves, makes him want to push.

“Why? Am I not good enough? Too far down the leaderboard?” It says too much, the words, the twist of guilt and frustrated anger in them. It lays him bare, gives her a knife, and he realises a second too late. Carolina recoils. He doesn’t think that anyone else would see it. No-one else is _left_ who knows her like he does. But they aren’t at war anymore. They aren’t pitted against each other.

“The leaderboard burned with the rest of Project Freelancer. Stand down Washington,” she says, and that tone is gone, replaced with the command that she’d use on a mission. 

Wash ducks his head in the least amount of acknowledgement he can get away with. “I should-“

“Stay where you are.” 

That is all that it takes. He hates himself for the instinctive reaction, but clings to it at the same time. He waits as Carolina walks towards him, his back straight, hands clasped at the small of it. He feels like a rookie again, with none of the affection that title had borne from the other Freelancers. She pushes right into his space, armour butting together. She’s taller than him, but he’s broader these days, and has his helmet on while Carolina’s face is brutally visible. Facing her down, it doesn’t feel like much of an advantage. 

“You’re going to get yourself killed Wash, if you don’t find a better way to cope. Trust me, I know.”

“It’s just training. I’ve got… sloppy recently. I need to get back on form. We’re in the middle of a war.”

“And none of it matters if you kill yourself. Even in the Project we had downtime.”

“Which you never used,” Wash points out. He remembers her booking up every second of time she could, drowning in obsession.

“And look what it got me. I lost sight of everything except beating _her_ and because of that I lost _everything_. So what are you trying to prove Wash?”

“That we can win this.” Isn’t that what they’re all fighting for? To take out the people exploiting Chorus, stop the Feds and the Rebels and everyone else from being wiped out. 

Carolina looks at him. Doesn’t reply, just looks. 

Wash swallows, forces down the panicked rush of breath, forces down the pounding of his heart, the fight or flight reaction honed to be more fight than flight.

“Locus.”

It’s a guilty hiss of a word, that pulls tight between his shoulder blades and aches down the length of his sternum. 

Carolina lets out a slow breath between tight lips. Her eyes close for half a second. He thinks she’s hiding. He can’t blame her. “Don’t go down that path Wash.”

“I have to.” He can’t explain why. He just knows, feels it to the very core, that Locus will destroy him. “I have to, Carolina. I can’t rest or he’ll win. I can’t sleep. I can’t sit still and laugh like they do. I can’t stop hearing him.”

He hears the sharp-edged mania creeping in at the edge of his voice, tries to draw back. He needs to move, to run, to punch something until his knuckles split. All that just to get back to his base level of functional paranoia, just enough to stop feeling the wasps under his skin. He turns, his back to Carolina, and that’s a mistake he pays for when he finds himself slammed up against the cliff face, one arm twisted high against his back. The helmet keeps his head from slamming against the rock. He almost wishes that it didn’t.

“What the fuck Carolina?”

“Is this it, Wash? Is this what you want?”

“Get off me.”

She eases back only to shove him forward again. His head jerks inside the helmet. He could struggle; he doesn’t think she’d genuinely fight him over what hasn’t even been an argument. It’s a hard instep stamp, twist, elbow back and into a punch, grapple for weapons and-

Wash doesn’t do any of that. He doesn’t move at all, even when Carolina presses her full weight against him and uses her free hand to unfasten the seal of his helmet. She drags it off him, tosses it a few feet away, all without breaking contact or easing up on her grip. She’s never been out of condition. Probably dragged herself out of that ravine and ran off the injury while he was still reeling from the broken-code fragments that Epsilon had left in his head.

“Carolina…” Epsilon is a worried voice close to Wash’s ear. He wonders for one fractured-glass moment if this is what it would have been like. A voice in his head, ripe with concern. If Epsilon had been whole. If Wash had been stronger. 

The next moment she’s got her hand against the back of his neck. She squeezes, enough to feel the pressure, if not to hurt. “If you’re destroying yourself, Washington, does it really matter if someone else has a hand in it? You’re spoiling for a fight, so _fight_.”

Fear creeps coldly down Wash’s spine, and relief with it, relief that he can still feel that, something sharp and real. He jerks against Carolina’s hold, ready to fight, twists beneath her and-

She lets him go. 

He stumbles, scrapes his chin against the rock face in his haste as he turns to face her, leaving an ugly mark that starts to throb. He can feel the heavy bass of his heart, the spike of adrenaline that fills his limbs, speeds his breathing, chemical reactions and he’s frozen here, a rabbit in front of a snake.

Carolina watches him. There’s a tautness to her that Wash knows means that she is ready. Running would be a bad idea, even if his pride would allow it.

“Let me help you, Wash. I know what you’re going through. Some of it.”

“Help me?” he says, an indignant growl. “You just attacked me!”

Anyone else would be rolling their eyes, but not Carolina. The sentiment is just as visible without that. 

“Oh come on,” Epsilon says, “she didn’t even scratch you. You did that yourself.”

“I’ve done worse to you in training a hundred times,” Carolina says.

“Not the point.” Wash relaxes, just a little, but he keeps glancing towards his helmet.

“It didn’t even take the edge off did it?”

The tremble of his hands concealed by gauntlets is proof enough. The adrenaline is there, but there’s no clarity from it, his thoughts as snarled and knotted as they had been this morning, yesterday, a week ago.

“I know what that’s like, Wash,” Carolina says, and her voice is low, secretive, even though there’s no-one else around. “I see you driving yourself harder and harder and it isn’t going to help.”

“It’ll help when I break Locus’s face,” Wash says. “That would really help right now.”

“I can’t deny that,” Carolina agrees with a faint smile, “but it’s not going to happen. Not yet. Not ever if you break yourself first. That’s what he wants. He’s goading you.” She cocks her head to one side, regarding him. It’s not pity he sees; that would send him off in a rage all over again. It’s understanding. For a second, Wash sees himself how she must. An angry young soldier too blinded by rage and competition to see beyond that. 

Wash’s shoulders slump, adrenaline spike gone, leaving only exhaustion in its wake. “He said he’d expected a better soldier, I should understand him, his motives. That I’d been the same as him but now I’m-“ He drags a hand through his hair, relishing the flashpoint of pain where it catched in the grooves of his armour. “I’m a disappointment. I’m the one who survived and I’m a _disappointment_.”

He expects laughter. Not mocking, but still laughter, like none of this matters, when it’s dug so deeply into his skin that he doesn’t know how to pull it out. It never comes.

“You’re a Freelancer.” There’s a sharp note in Carolina’s voice, the kind that none of them had been able to ignore. 

Wash looks up, searching her face. “I was the rookie.”

“We were all rookies at some point.”

“Talk for yourself,” Epsilon says. “I was always this awesome and- hey! Don’t laugh Washington!”

Wash doesn’t try to hide his smirk. “You’re forgetting who you’re talking to.” He’s never joked about it before. It feels good. 

Epsilon huffs, folding holographic arms over his chest and retreating to hover above Carolina’s shoulder. They’re so comfortable together. There’s a twinge of jealousy that he knows is unreasonable, but his feelings about Epsilon have mostly dulled to a constant numb ache, like any one of the numerous scars on his body. It never goes away, but you adjust to it as the background noise of your life.

“No matter what happened later, Wash, you were there for a reason. We were good. Strong. And in the end, you survived when no-one else did.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” Wash admits. “I survived. Now I have to- to carry on for the rest of them. Prove that I survived for a reason.”

Carolina shakes her head. “Wash, there’s nothing to prove.”

“We need to win,” Wash says, “before they wipe everyone here out.”

“Then we’ll win,” Carolina says. “We fighting a war, not proving a point.”

“Is that right…” Wash leans back against the cliff face, head tilted back towards the night sky. There’s no light pollution here, he’s noticed, not with most of the cities abandoned. He can see the stars. 

“Let me help you, Wash,” Carolina repeats. “I know you’re in your head, thinking it over. Driving yourself mad.” She knows him too well. 

“What do you suggest? I used to go for runs to clear my head but that’s not been helping.” It leaves him exhausted physically but with his mind still racing.

“I have a few ideas,” she says. She holds out her hand to him. Wash eyes her for a moment before he takes it and lets Carolina pull him away from the rock face.

“Can’t hurt to try something.”

He collects his helmet and puts it back on before they return to base. Carolina doesn’t take him to the training area though, or the armoury, or any of the places that he might have expected. It’s out past the barracks that they go, to one of the many hastily erected buildings they’d put up to house the mix of Feds and Rebels and refugees who just wouldn’t fit anywhere else. This one is smaller than most, and opens into what must have been a storage room at one point. There’s a cot against one wall, military neat, and a locker.

“What is this?” Wash asks, hovering in the doorway. Carolina sits on the edge of the cot, unlatching the seals on her armour, gauntlets first, and setting them aside. 

“My room.”

The surprise Wash feels is very real. “Uh- how did you manage to get your own place in a war zone?”

Carolina smirks at him and pushes her hair out of her face. “I have my ways.”

“Right.” He shifts from one foot to the other. “Why am I here?”

“To clear your head. In a more healthy way than you have been.”

Wash tilts his head, raises an eyebrow. “In your bedroom.”

She gives him a look, cool and amused. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s not that. Though that is a good stress relief now and then.”

“Puts a whole new spin on some of those debriefing sessions,” Wash muttered. “What is it then? Board games and booze? Doesn’t work. I tried. Caboose had an interesting interpretation of the rules and there is a reason we don’t play board games anymore.”

“I wish I could that I was surprised,” Carolina says. She sounds fond. “Hey Epsilon,” she says, jerking her head towards the AI projection, “take yourself offline for a while.”

“What?” is the indignant response. “But- what are you-“ He pauses and then, “Oh. Oh! Right. Sure.” He nods towards Wash and then vanishes. Wash half expects a puff of smoke when he does, but there’s just empty air. 

“Right,” Carolina says, turning her full attention back to him. She has a hell of a piercing stare when she wants to use it. “Wash. Do you trust me?”

He blinks, takes a half step backwards, thrown off by the question. “What? Carolina I- That’s a hell of a loaded question.” He’s not sure that he can even begin to untangle the mess of emotions and memories that would be required to answer that, and even if he could, he’s pretty sure the answer is both ‘of course I do’ and ‘hell no’ and everything in between all at once. 

“You’re right. Not fair,” she replies, giving a sharp nod. “Let me be more specific.”

“Come on Carolina. What is this about?” He ruthlessly stamps down on the instinct to look for an escape route. He’s not a rookie. Not a trapped animal either, no matter how much he might feel like one.

“Do you trust me here, in this moment, in this room, not to hurt you or do anything that would jeopardise your safety?” She asks bluntly and he wonders if she’s practiced the words. They sound like something she’s set out beforehand, too specific to be spontaneous. 

Wash clenches his fingers at his side, relaxes them. In this moment, in this place? “Yeah. I trust you.”

She bows her head. He can see her chest rise and fall as she breathes. When she looks up, there’s something subtly different. Something in the set of her shoulders, the fluidity of her movements as she stands and walks towards him. Something in her face. She’s always been commanding. You learn to recognise that pretty quickly in the military. But it isn’t that. That type of command comes with an edge, a promise of violence barely hidden beneath the veneer. This command comes with calm. Something solid that backs her as she walks towards him. She stands a foot away from him. That’s it. Just looks at him. 

“I’m going to tie you up, Wash.” 

That makes him jerk back, just out of reach, his face twisted into a mask of disbelief. “What?” Has she gone crazy? Has _he_ gone crazy? He thinks that he must have. Maybe one of the hits to the head finally got him. “You’re joking, right?”

She’s not joking. 

“I don’t understand,” he says. “I don’t get it. What is going on?”

She lets out a huff of breath, somewhere between amused and irritated. “You want out of your head.” It isn’t a question. “That’s why the long runs, endless training. Pushing yourself until you break.”

“I don’t see how _tying me up_ is going to help!” He can’t hide the shrill note in his voice, the one that is definitely not panic, that definitely doesn’t make him sound like a fucking kid. 

“You’d be surprised how well it works.” She smiles at him, reaches out. Her fingers slide beneath his chin, making sure that he’s looking at her. They’re an arms length away, and it feels as intimate as if she were to kiss him. “Not asking you to sign your life away Wash. Just to try it. If it doesn’t work, we never mention it again.”

He’s crazy for considering this. He can’t see how it can help. And yet… “I’ve signed my life away for worse,” he says quietly. Signed his life away to the military, to Freelancer. How can this hurt more? “I’ll try it.”

Carolina nods, that firefly smile back again. She turns away from him, starting to strip off the rest of her armour with quick, efficient motions. “Ditch the armour.” She glances back at him. “You can leave the undersuit on, don’t worry.”

“Not what I’m worried about,” he says, but does as she suggests. No. It’s an order, not a suggestion. That makes it easier. Orders make things slide into place in his brain in a way that is comforting and unsettling all at once. The armour comes off piece by piece, set aside until there’s just the bodysuit, layered like a second skin, covering every inch of him from toes to neck. Carolina’s the same. It’s familiar even. They’d seen each other in the locker room enough back in the Project. If you didn’t learn to strip down without feeling awkward you’d never survive ten minutes in the military.

When he’s done, he stands there, slips into parade rest without even thinking, hands clasped at the small of his back. Carolina takes her time. He’s not sure if she’s doing it on purpose or if she’s really that deliberate with every movement, and the armour just hides it. She faces him, hair shockingly red against the black undersuit. She looks him over, and it’s the first time they’d met all over again, being scrutinised to ascertain whether he belonged there, if he was worthy of the project.

She steps around him. He can feel her gaze against the back of his neck; it itches just above the spot where Epsilon had been implanted, where spiderweb scars still map a pale route across his skin. It consumes his focus enough that when the first touch comes, the slide of her fingers down his arms, from shoulders to palms, he flinches like she’d run a bolt of electricity through him.

“You need a safe word.” Her fingers still rest against his hands, a constant pressure.

“I don’t understand.”

“To tell me if you need to stop.”

“Saying ‘stop’ won’t be enough?” 

“I like to have a backup,” Carolina says. “You’d be surprised how often people say ‘stop’ but don’t mean it. But a safe word… if that is said, everything halts immediately. No questions asked.”

Wash shifts his weight onto one foot, fights the urge to turn to face her. “I don’t think that’s necessary.” He can take being restrained. He’d been imprisoned. They’d all been through interrogation training.

“Really?” Carolina asks. She squeezes his wrists, a moment of sharp pressure. “A minute ago you were freaking out over me saying I was going to tie you up.”

“That’s-“ Completely and utterly true and yet…

Her knee connects with the back of his, hard enough to nudge him off balance and then he’s going down, Carolina pushing him to his knees, her weight against his shoulders. “Just choose a damn word, Wash.”

He’s on his knees at Carolina’s feet and in the end, there is only one word that it can be. Only one word it could ever be. “Freelancer.”

She goes still, a second of nothingness, and then she squeezes his shoulders. “Stay like that.”

The order prickles down his spine, something electric about it. He braces himself on his knees, legs spread to keep his balance when his arms are behind his back, and he watches as Carolina pulls a box from beneath the bed. It’s flat and grey; a supply case dragged from the wreckage of their crashed ship. She opens it and pulls out lengths and lengths of rope. It’s sturdy looking stuff too, not the shit you’d see in the novelty stores that catered to off-duty marines on shore leave.

She doesn’t tie him up straight away, though she drops the rope into a coil in front of him like a promise. Her fingers dig into his shoulders, seeking out knots of muscle and tension that have been there for years. It doesn’t get rid of them entirely, but her hands are warm and strong, and it loosens them a little. He shudders and makes a soft noise when she presses against a thick ball of scar tissue.

“Okay?” Carolina asks, pausing.

“Yeah,” Wash says. He rolls his shoulders, feeling that movement easier than he has in a while. “I’m too old for this shit.”

“You’re younger than I am, rookie,” Carolina says. He can hear her smile and the nickname doesn’t sting.

“Then I’m too young to be feeling like this.” A mess of scar tissue and sinew held together by spite. 

Carolina’s movements slow, her thumbs running up his neck, carefully skirting the hollow port on his neck, until she brushes against the hair at the nape. There’s grey there, threading through blond which has darkened and dulled over the years. There’s been grey there since Epsilon.

Hands rest against the side of his neck for a moment. “Ready?”

“I’m ready. Ready as I’ll ever be,” he adds, a wry curve of a smile on his lips.

“That’s the best we could ever hope for,” Carolina replies. 

She ties his arms first; tugs them until they are crossed against his back, and then wraps the rope around them. She starts at his left, wrist to arm, the rope resting around his elbow. It’s a firm pressure, not tight enough to cut off the circulation, but constant and enough to be felt even through the undersuit. The other wrist follows. It pinches at the skin, and Carolina pauses when he hisses at the sensation, loosens the rope, tries again. She wraps the rope around his arms a few turns, encasing them so that there is not even half an inch of give between them.

Carolina squeezes his fingers. He flexes them against hers. _Okay, I’m okay. Been through worse than this._ It isn’t so bad. Fills them with a dull ache, but that’s all. No different to having to stand for hours on end back in basic, legs and arms cramping.

It's when she reaches for his legs, presses them apart that he starts to tense up again. Can run with arms bound. He’s done it before. Can’t do a whole lot if your legs are leashed as well. She comes to kneel in front of him, flashes a smile. Her hands on his thighs are efficient, but not impersonal as she positions him. Knelt back, legs wide to give him balance. If he wasn’t wearing the undersuit he’d think it was to expose him. But it isn’t like that. 

“Up,” she prompts, tapping his thigh to get him to lean up. He expects her to hobble him, tie his ankles like she would a prisoner if nothing better was to hand. Instead she fastens a loop of rope around each leg about mid-calf, a length for each, then coaxes him back down with fingers splayed against the muscle of his thigh. The rope wraps around that instead, binding upper and lower legs together in a bent position.

“I thought…” he begins, and Carolina looks up at him. There’s something burning in her green eyes. He thinks she’s enjoying this.

“Alright Wash?” There’s a tiny curve of a smile on her lips that makes him want to shiver.

He swallows and ducks his head in a nod. “Yeah. I’m alright. Just surprised.”

“Oh?” It comes with a quirked eyebrow.

“Thought you’d tie me like a prisoner.”

“You’re not a prisoner, Wash,” she says, and her hand is on his shoulder again, thumb brushing just against his throat. “This isn’t about holding you captive.” She doesn’t give him chance to ask further, when she ducks her head and continues tying the knots. 

There is, he finds, something soothing about watching her work. The precise tightening of rope, a loop closing around his leg, the efficient brush of Carolina’s fingers, they are easy to focus on, move with. Each loop around his thighs changes the point of balance and she follows that, nudges him to tilt and lean and settle until he’s perfectly balanced in front of her.

Her hands linger on his knees, thumb rubbing a soft circle into his thigh before she pulls away slowly. “How does it feel?”

He tests the bonds, pulls against them. They don’t give. Might do if he was wearing armour, but not like this. It’s a discomforting feeling. He’s so used to having that strength at his disposal. Maybe relies on it too much. For a moment his heart speeds up, eyes widen and breath sharpens in his lungs as he pulls at the ropes. Stretch and tense and push and they’re straps around his arms and legs and chest, holding him flat to a sterile hospital bed while he screams and cries and calls for Allison over and over again, while he lies silent and unresponsive, a blank slate while they question him again.

Fingers tilt his head up to meet Carolina’s eyes. “I’m right here Wash. You’re safe. You’re okay.”

It takes a moment, but then the absurdity of the statement hits him, drags a startled laugh from his lips, and he is here again, on the floor of Carolina’s room on Chorus. “Debatable.” But it’s enough to bring him back to the here and now. 

She smacks his shoulder, far more gentle than she could be. “I’ll be right here. If you want to stop, you know what to say.”

“That’s it?” he asks, brow creasing into a frown. 

”What were you expecting? For me to break out the whips?”

“You have a w-“ He shakes his head. “No, I don’t want to know.”

“Careful. That was very close to enthusiasm there Wash. I’ll start getting ideas.”

The prospect is a bit terrifying. A bit arousing in a way that he doesn’t feel like examining right now. There’s one last pat to his shoulder, and then she’s gone. He can hear her feet pad across the floor. That’s for his benefit. She can move silently when she wants to. And then there is nothing.

No, that isn’t right.

His breathing is very loud. He’s aware of every inhale-exhale, the sound of it, the pause between every breath. Tries to time it with a count, but it throws him off, artificial control and now he can’t stop.

The undersuit has pulled tight around his shoulders because of the ropes. It’s been sitting oddly for a while, not adjusted for the changes in his body, and now it’s tight there, clinging to his skin.

His pulse thumps strong where the ropes wrap around his wrists. Wash flexes his arms against the bindings again. They don’t give. No reason why they should. Tries anyway. Feels each loop of rope tight around his arms. He can’t move. Not the first time this has happened. Lockdown paint used to brutal effect. Suit locks. Injury after injury. 

Wash curls his fingers against his skin. Muscles tense and relax and for a moment he loses himself in that, feels them slide beneath his skin, sinew and tendons and nerves working as one. That spot in his right arm where it goes numb sometimes. The tighter pull of scar tissue. 

The hell does Carolina think this will do?

Anyone else and he’d figure it was some kind of trap, a joke. Get Agent Washington on his knees, bring him down to their level. High and mighty Freelancer, thinks he’s so much better than them when really he’s just a _disappointment_.

The word comes in Locus’ voice. Icy contempt that chills him into stillness. Not good enough, never good enough, they died, they all _died_ while he was breaking, fracturing into a million pieces, lost in too many memories to piece together what was him and what was Epsilon and Alpha and Director. A soft, strangled noise drags itself from his throat. It is a raw sound, like a hurt animal. It’s him, pathetic.

“I’m here, Wash.” Soft words murmured from behind him, long, slim fingers against the back of his neck, brush against the implantation site, skirt along his hairline. She’s there. He’s not alone. 

“I’m okay,” he says, and even as stubborn as he tries to be, the words slur a little, slip together like he’s drunk or, more familiarly, exhausted and shot full of pain meds. 

“This isn’t a punishment Wash,” she says, and if she’d sounded gentle, if she’d sounded pitying, he would have ended it there and then. But she sounds like it’s any other instruction, like she’d explained things back in the Project, clean syllables and certainty. “This isn’t about proving yourself for some leaderboard.” 

He jerks against the bonds, pulls against them, head dropping between his shoulders. “Then what is it about? I don’t see how this-” He can stop it. He can say the word and he trusts her to stop right now. But then what? Another ten laps around the base and he’ll still be too wired to sleep. 

Her hand rests against his back between his shoulderblades, pressing down gently. “Breathe, Washington. That’s all you have to do.”

“I just don’t-” The word is on his lips. Freelancer. Freelancer. All he has to do is say it but it feels too much like giving up. 

Carolina squeezes his shoulder gently and then is gone. Wash growls and slumps, feels the ropes slacken a little when he isn’t actively working against them.

Right. This. He tries to not think. That should be the easiest thing, shouldn’t it? Not thinking. Doing nothing should be easier than doing something. Inertia. It has always been easier to follow the path of least resistance. That is what he’s good at, isn’t it? Follow in whichever direction he is pushed until something comes to shove him another way. 

Always easier to work for Freelancer than question what was going on. Easier to let them shape him, than forge himself. Easier to follow orders. It was always easier to do that.

_That’s what a soldier does. Follow orders._

No. No that’s not- He stares at the floor, picks out scuffs on the concrete, spots where it set and then had bubbles burst to leave it pock-marked, stains from who knows what. Counts those. Concentrates on them like he’s shooting, vicious hyperfocus on that one thing.

Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine. One-hundre-

It could have been him. It _had_ been him. 

There’s a bead of sweat trickling down the back of his neck. It tickles.

He’d followed orders. He had done what was necessary to complete his mission. At all costs. Had been so certain that it was the right thing. No. Hadn’t cared if it was the right thing as long as it got him what he wanted. He hadn’t cared who got hurt in the process. He’d been a monster and-

Freelancer. The word is on his tongue. He can end it all, can stop this, because it’s not a fight, it’s not a battle, Carolina is there and he trusts her and…

His arms ache. His mouth is dry. Eyes open, staring straight ahead at the grey on grey wall.

He trusts her. She has his back.

He thinks his legs are dead. They feel numb. 

There are people who have his back. He’d been a monster, tried to be a weapon, and now? Now he’s a soldier and there are people who’ll watch his back.

Oh.

His breath escapes him in a long, slow exhale. Revelation does not hit like a Warthog, but slides in slowly, seeps through his limbs, through the throbbing of his shoulders and the ache at the back of his neck around the port that never really stopped aching. It bears him along, leaves him drifting. He can feel his body, the bunching of his muscles and the way the hairs on the back of his arms rub minutely against the undersuit. He can feel the tug of skin from a recent burn, healed shiny and pink, a newer part of himself that he will grow into with time. The fascinating flex of hinges, the map of nerves and veins and sinew. It’s the mindless, passive consciousness of his body that he’d searched for when running, when training, and here it is in the spin of rope on flesh.

He thinks he might have lost himself by the time that he feels hands on his shoulders, a guide rope back to shore. He doesn’t flinch. She’s got his back. Her hands ease slowly down the planes of his back to crossed arms. 

The swift release of tension makes him cry out and she’s there, she’s there, holding his arms up as she loosens the ropes. “It’s okay Wash, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”

She lowers his arms carefully to dangle at his sides, knuckles brushing the floor, a slumped and exhausted figure. His muscles are knotted and tight. He feels looser than he has in years.

Carolina’s hair is very red around the flecks of the same grey in his own. She unties his legs, coaxes him up onto his knees. “Think you can stand?”

“Hm?” She sounds a long way away. 

“I said- c’mere Wash.” She wraps an arm around his shoulders and then he’s on his feet. 

Standing is hard. Walking is harder. His legs long gone, drifted away with him except for the buzzing in his feet that’s gonna ache like a bitch soon, but for now is just an odd sensation blotted out by others. Carolina is very warm. 

Her bed. He should object to that, but the reasons for it are short circuited. His thoughts spark dully as she stretches him out on the bed, hand sliding along the length of his body until he’s laid out on his side. He struggles weakly when she pulls a blanket over him. “Carolina…”

“Stay there, Wash.” 

“But…” But he should go. But this is her bed. But he doesn’t belong there.

“No arguments. Stay there.”

Wash knows that tone of voice. He stays. Can hear her moving across the room. The deadness of his legs is starting to fade, replaced with the prickle of pins and needles. He wriggles his toes. That- that’s kind of hilarious. He does it again, feels the movement of muscles right along his legs, and then he rolls over, presses his face against the pillow, feels every thread in the cotton against his cheek. He’s never noticed before.

There’s a hand on his shoulder again, and he lets Carolina roll him back over. She has a bottle of water in her hands. There’s a curly straw in it. He has no idea where she got a curly straw from, but it makes him smile. “Drink.”

The water is lukewarm and has the same vaguely plasticy taste that all the water on Chorus has. Minerals in the planet’s surface and no amount of refining will remove. He doesn’t care. It tastes amazing right now. The straw keeps him from gulping too much at once, gives it time to wet his mouth and throat. 

“How are you feeling?” Carolina asks when he’s done, and when she’s made sure he can hold the bottle on his own without his fingers going slack around it.

He frowns at her, has to think about it. He can reel off lists of his injuries while bleeding out in the mud, but he can’t drag his head together enough to manage ‘okay’. “Drunk?” It’s not right, but it’s the closest he can get to explaining how his limbs feel loose and heavy, how he’s finding the oddest things fascinating, how he thinks this is the first time in years he’s welcomed physical contact. 

“That happens,” Carolina says, the corners of her lips rising. “It’ll last for a while. Do you hurt anywhere?”

“Ache a bit. Had worse.” He likes the ache. There’s something clean about it. Knows where it came from and isn’t having to try to match up bruises to hits taken.

“If you roll over, I can try to ease some of that.” 

“No,” Wash says, shakes his head, tries to move when everything feels sluggish. “I should go… I should…”

“You’re not going anywhere until you’re back in your head, Washington,” Carolina says, and there’s a firm hand against his arm pressing him back down onto the bed. 

“I’m fine. I am really fine.”

“You know the crash you get when you’re coming off the good drugs in medical, Wash?”

“Yeah?” Which of them didn’t? The slow loss of warmth and the way the world crashed back onto you. It sucked.

“Then you’ll stay on that bed and let me ease you out of it.” 

“Oh.” He doesn’t understand. But if it lets him stay in this warm cocoon of feeling for a while longer, he’s not going to fight it. “Okay.”

There is a lot that he doesn’t know about Carolina. He adds ‘gives amazing massages’ and ‘likes tying people up’ to his mental list. Her hands are hard and strong, dig into the places on his back that he can never reach. Feels like he’s going to bruise when his back is left tender and humming with blood. He hadn’t realise how much pain from knotted muscles he’d been dealing with until it’s gone.

He really doesn’t think that he can move.

She helps him sit up. Should feel embarrassed at needing the help, but the feeling never materialises as more than a vague flicker at the back of his mind. The bed dips under the weight of both of them, and there’s not much room. Her knee presses against his thigh when she feeds him, passes over little bits of chocolate and energy bar. He tastes it, the burst of sweetness, the flat taste of grains. He’s too used to eating as quickly as he can, snatched moments between running drills with the soldier. Likes the warmth of Carolina next to him as he pulls himself back together, slotting pieces back into place. 

She looks content. He isn’t used to not seeing her on the verge of action, the corded tension in every movement. 

“Think you can sleep?” she asks finally.

“I think if I wake up before noon tomorrow it’ll be a miracle,” Wash says, a wry note to his voice. Exhaustion is a physical thing pressing down on him, weighting his eyelids. 

“You need it,” Carolina says. 

He manages to lie down by himself. What remains of his pride is pretty pleased by that. Carolina lies down next to him, a line of heat against his body on the small bed. It should feel awkward. Probably will tomorrow. Right this moment though, he wonders if maybe she’d needed this as much as he had.

He sleeps. Not like the dead. He knows what the dead sleep like. Sleeps like the exhausted finding peace in the middle of war.


End file.
